Tag Archives: bill frick

In a radio interview, Del. Bill Frick made hard-charging remarks regarding former Rockville Mayor Rose Krasnow’s competing campaign for county executive.

“I had never heard her name before she announced as a candidate,” Frick, 43, said. “She hadn’t been in public life since the turn of the century. I really had not interacted with her. I’ve been a member of the legislature for 10 years and never encountered her.”

On the same radio show, Bill Frick also said:

“I’ve knocked on a lot of doors in Montgomery County and I’ve never heard someone say whoever’s in charge of the Planning Department should be in charge of the county,” Frick said. “That is not a sentiment I’ve ever heard.”

Krasnow replied by accusing Frick of being dismissive of her campaign and consequently sexist:

In a statement Krasnow sent to Sherwood that was shared with Bethesda Beat, she suggested, “Perhaps Mr. Frick’s dismissive remarks about me are a reflection of his attitude toward women.”

She elaborated during an interview Monday with Bethesda Beat. “I assume his comment about the turn of the century was trying to make me look old,” added Krasnow, 66. “I was in office until the end of ’01. It means I wasn’t an elected official yesterday, that’s definitely true … .”

Even if one believes that it’s okay for Krasnow to refer frequently to her service as Rockville’s mayor and not for Frick to point out it was some years ago, making her look old would be ageism, not sexism. Ironically, after accusing Frick of sexism, Krasnow then engaged in the exact same dismissive behavior and topped it off with a false claim:

“I, like many other people, had not heard of Bill Frick until I got into this race,” Krasnow said of Frick, who has served as the delegate from Bethesda-based District 16 since first being selected by the county’s Democratic Central Committee to replace Marilyn Goldwater in 2007. Last year, he was appointed House majority leader.

She noted she learned more about him from a 2007 blog post titled Who The Frick is Bill. “So I wouldn’t start talking about name recognition. I believe mine is much higher than his,” she said. “He has represented a fairly small district in Bethesda while I represented the entire city of Rockville.”

Frick is one of three delegates who represent District 16, which encompasses an area with a population of about 120,000 residents, while Rockville’s population is about 62,000.

While I am sure Adam Pagnucco Kevin Gillogly is flattered by the reference to his blog post, behaving as if there is one rule for male candidates and another for female candidates is the very definition of sexism. On Monday, Frick responded by describing Krasnow’s allegation as “ridiculous and baseless.”

“I think that’s out of line,” Frick said. “I’ve been a feminist since I was old enough to pronounce the word. I have a 100 percent voting record and have been a strong leader on women’s issues.”

Krasnow could have taken other more effective approaches in her response to Frick. For example, she could have instead pointed out that she is the only candidate with senior executive experience in the public sector – not just as mayor but at the Planning Board – and thus turned the biased idea that men are better executives on its head without even mentioning gender.

She also could have just stuck with the calm, thoughtful claim that voters don’t really know any of the candidates well and she hoped that voters had the opportunities to learn about her through the campaign. She started off with that approach – one that would have made her look experienced and judicious – but then shifted to the weak-beer sexism allegation.

As has been rightly discussed much of late, sexism is alive and well with the spotlight revealing male employers using their positions to behave inappropriately, unprofessionally, and worse towards their female employees. Unfortunately, Krasnow’s accusation attracts attention for the wrong reasons.

First, the easy part: all three incumbents – Senator Susan Lee and Delegates Ariana Kelly and Marc Korman – are running as a team and are headed to reelection. Lee has historically been one of the delegation’s best fundraisers (although Korman surpassed her by a little bit this cycle). Kelly is beloved by advocates for families, women and children for her work on their issues and has emerged as a leader on ridding Annapolis of sexual harassment. Korman is a rare bird: a lawyer who is good with numbers. Metro riders everywhere should thank him for his tenacious work to improve WMATA. Great things are predicted for Korman so long as he does not return to blogging.

Attorney Sara Love and MCPS teacher Samir Paul are the top non-incumbents vying for the seat being vacated by Delegate Bill Frick, who is running for County Executive. Love and Paul would be great candidates in any part of the county, but unfortunately for them, they are running in the same district. Love fits in well with the progressive female voters who dominate District 16 primaries. Paul is a teacher who has been active in MCEA (which has endorsed him), but his message is much bigger than education as he draws links between all public institutions that confer benefits but require investment, especially WMATA. Love and Paul had super fundraising performances and are essentially equal in cash on hand. Those who have met them are impressed with both of them, but sadly, there is only one open seat.

This district is a mess. The only certainty here is that Senator Cheryl Kagan and Delegate Kumar Barve will be reelected, assuming that Kagan is not picked up by a gubernatorial candidate as a running mate. As for everything else… well.

At the root of the mess is Delegate Jim Gilchrist. By all accounts, he is a nice guy who never causes trouble. His defenders describe him as a studious, intellectual workhorse who gets into the weeds and doesn’t claim credit for anything. But he has little tangible to show for three terms in office. He has passed no signature legislation. His website is inactive. His Facebook page has not been updated since 2014 as of this writing. And his fundraising is weak. Consider this: since 2006, Gilchrist has raised a total of $83,217 from others, an average of $27,739 per cycle. (He has also self-financed $11,120 over that period.) MoCo has a bunch of candidates who can raise $27,000 in a month.

The search result for Gilchrist’s website less than five months from election day.

So why does he keep winning office? He has a guardian angel: Barve, who is his committee chair and likes him. Barve slates with him regularly and appears in joint mailers with him. Gilchrist would be a goner in most districts, but with Barve helping him, he survives. And that has caused grumbling in some parts of District 17.

Kagan, who is no fan of Gilchrist, announced that she was not endorsing the Delegate slate, at least not yet. This is almost unheard of; in virtually all cases when incumbent Delegates form a slate and none of them are challenging the sitting Senator, the Senator participates. And when Kagan posted her decision on Facebook, the Mayor of Gaithersburg and two Gaithersburg City Council Members voiced their displeasure with the slate.

Open dissatisfaction with the Delegate slate surfaces on Kagan’s Facebook page.

The nominal reason expressed by some for their unhappiness is that with the inclusion of Palakovich Carr, all three slate members are from Rockville and none are from Gaithersburg. (The two cities are roughly equal in size.) But lurking underneath is festering discontent with Gilchrist’s performance in office. Some would prefer open competition in part because it might lead to Gilchrist’s defeat, but instead they got another slate designed to protect him. Two Gaithersburg House candidates – school board member Rebecca Smondrowski and attorney Julian Haffner (who is married to a City Council Member) – have now entered the race. Barve is the only Delegate candidate with any real money, so all the others have a lot of work to do.

The Big Questions: will the Gaithersburg grumblers step up and organize for one or more of the House candidates from their city? Or will they cut their losses and make their peace with Barve and his slate-mates? And what, if anything, will Kagan do?

Christmas morning is over and your blogger is done opening the presents – errrrr, campaign finance reports. Now we get to share them with you! And we will start by breaking down the Montgomery County Executive race.

Before we start playing with the toys, let’s clear away the wrapping and discuss a few data issues. Our numbers are different from what you will read in other outlets. That’s because Seventh State readers are special and we are going to give you only the best! First, we calculate total raised and total spent across the entire cycle and not just over the course of one report period. Many candidates, particularly in other races we will discuss, have been campaigning for more than a year and we want to capture that. Second, we separate self-funding from funds raised from others. Self-funding includes money from spouses. Total raised does not include in-kind contributions. Third, for self-financed candidates, we include public matching fund distributions that have been requested but not deposited in raised money and in cash on hand (which we call adjusted cash balance). That gives you a better idea of the true financial position of publicly financed campaigns.

And now, we reveal the numbers you all have been craving: the first round of fundraising reports for the seven people running for County Executive.

This is exactly the kind of race Council Member Marc Elrich wants. He is up against five other candidates, only one of whom has run countywide before, who are nothing like him and cannot steal votes from his progressive and anti-development base. Better yet, because of public financing, he has the resources to be financially competitive. (The thought of Elrich with money is almost as strange as the sight of Elrich wearing a suit and tie.) Elrich has been building a grass roots base for thirty years and he will be able to combine it with substantial labor, progressive and environmental support. This election is starting to turn into Elrich and a competition to become the non-Elrich alternative.

Council Member Roger Berliner has to feel good about his report. He leads the field in total raised for the cycle and cash on hand, and also has the lowest burn rate. Berliner can now start making the case to those who are not inclined to support Elrich that he is the most viable alternative to Elrich. Doing that is essential for his path to victory. (Disclosure: your author is a publicly-listed supporter of Berliner and has done work for him in the past.)

Businessman David Blair is sometimes compared to fellow businessman David Trone, but he is not using a Trone-like strategy. When Trone entered the CD8 race last year, he staffed up rapidly and began spending millions on television within weeks. Accordingly, some observers expected Blair to write himself a million dollar check, putting opponents on notice and perhaps intimidating one or two of them to withdraw. But while Trone plays to win, Blair looks like he’s playing around. He gave himself just enough money ($300,000) to equal the formerly penniless Elrich in cash on hand and trail Berliner. As for private sector fundraising, Berliner has raked in almost three times as much as Blair. Blair needs to sharpen his message, learn more about the county and show a hunger to win.

Council Member George Leventhal is plenty hungry. He might be the hardest-working candidate in the race and he clearly believes he’s the best person for the job. But Leventhal is killing his campaign with his sky-high burn rate (46%), which is more than double the burn rates of Elrich (19%) and Berliner (18%). Like Berliner, Leventhal needs to show to non-Elrich folks that he is the most viable alternative to Elrich. To do that, he needs to tighten up his spending and get some big endorsements – sooner rather than later.

Bill Frick, you know we love you. We admire your heroism on the liquor monopoly and we appreciate all the great fodder you have given us over the years. But you showed a cash balance of $150,753 – less than half what Berliner, Elrich and Blair reported. Why are you doing this, Bill? We want many more years of you in public office, so please take our advice: stay in the House and run to succeed Brian Frosh as Attorney General when the time comes. We will help you do it! We will even write dozens of blog posts just like this one.

Former Planning Department staffer and Rockville Mayor Rose Krasnow is an appealing, substantive and competent candidate with fans in both the business and smart growth communities. The fact that she is the only female candidate running against five men in a Democratic primary electorate that is almost 60% female is a big plus. Her numbers are not in yet, but she told Bethesda Magazine that she had raised $39,800 from small contributions in the public financing system. If that’s true, it means she is on pace to qualify for public matching funds much faster than either Elrich or Leventhal did. Still, we don’t understand why she entered public financing. It takes a long time to raise money that way and it prevents her from tapping into what could be substantial business support. Even if she qualifies for matching funds, she could very well trail all the other Democrats in fundraising except maybe Frick.

Republican Robin Ficker appears roughly halfway to qualifying for public matching funds. That means the county’s most infamous anti-tax activist could wind up campaigning on the public dole. And all of you MoCo residents will be paying for that!

Thanks to Bethesda Beat for their illuminating coverage of the Realtors Forum for county executive candidates.

We’ve Got Questions, He Still Doesn’t Have Answers

When David Blair announced his candidacy, he refused to take a position on the county recordation tax hike, saying “There will be a lot of opportunities to talk about specific policies.” After much rumination, his refusal has evolved into waffling:

David Blair, was less definitive in his answer.

Blair said he would’ve combed the county budget for savings before resorting to raising the recordation tax. When pressed about whether he would’ve voted yes or no on a tax increase, Blair acknowledged that the county in 2016 was “in a really particular jam” in light of the education infrastructure needs.

“I believe I would’ve been able to find those savings,” he said. “If I couldn’t have found the savings, presumably we would’ve had to raise the recordation tax.”

He said he’d like to roll back the tax increase, if he can find budget savings to replace the lost revenue.

In short, Blair continues to do his best to prove Gus Bauman correct in his claim that Blair lacks enough political knowledge and experience for the job of county executive.

Too Much Time in the Planning Department?

Candidates also were asked where they’d advise a young couple making about $100,000 annually to live in the county.

Krasnow said she’d probably tell the hypothetical couple to explore renting an apartment that’s an accessory to a single-family home. . .

Somehow, I don’t think “Move to Montgomery County, so you can live above your parents’ garage” is a winning slogan. In articulating the latest fad among planners, Krasnow inadvertently captured the nervous national zeitgeist of expectations of a lower quality of life than previous generations.

Allowing more accessory apartments into existing neighborhoods is a popular idea at the Planning Department. Existing neighborhoods wonder why plans for parking or additional infrastructure to accommodate new residents never accompany these proposals.

Frick Opposes Recordation Tax Increase

Alone among Democrats, Del. Bill Frick came out strongly against the tax hike in a county known nationally for its unusually high taxes related to buying and selling property:

“I think the recordation tax increase was a mistake,” he said. “And frankly, I’m sorry you were put through what you were put through.”

Frick said unequivocally that he’d seek to reverse the hike, if elected, and would lobby for more state funding to address school construction challenges.

This stance sets Frick noticeably apart from candidates like Roger Berliner, David Blair and Rose Krasnow who are also trying to position themselves as pro-change, pro-growth and pro-business candidates.

While the other candidates either waffled (Blair) or favored the increase as necessary for school construction (everyone else), Frick took a definitive public stance against it. Frick’s willingness to stand out on this and other issues looks smart in a field with many candidates that voters have trouble sorting out.

I don’t know if Bill won any new friends at the forum but he should have for (1) taking a stance the crowd supports, (2) even though the stance will be unpopular with other Democratic constituencies, and (3) his willingness to be clearcut about it.

Montgomery County is facing a budget shortfall and across-the-board operating budget cuts of 2%–and warning that’s just a start. Del. Bill Frick is highlighting the cuts to go after his three opponents in the Democratic primary for county executive who have served for many years on the County Council:

It is time for new leadership in Rockville. Our councilmembers ignored warnings from County Executive Leggett to restrain spending. Despite an increase in the recordation tax, and a nearly 9% increase in property taxes, we find ourselves without sufficient revenues to pay for these councilmembers pet projects, and, as a result, public services are being cut. Our county deserves better.

Question: The county’s liquor monopoly has come under heavy criticism–not least from Seventh State. If at all, how would you reform or change, or press the state legislature to change, the Department of Liquor Control?

Roger Berliner

At the county level, I have been the chief advocate for ending our unique – and counterproductive – liquor monopoly. As someone who has fought monopolies most of my professional life, I know in my bones that monopolies are rarely, if ever, in the public interest. Government monopolies are generally even less efficient. And a government monopoly that tries to do a job that the private sector does in the rest of the country is almost always less efficient. That is true in MoCo. As a result, our residents vote with their feet. Almost one-third of our purchases of liquor are made outside Montgomery County. Our restaurants hate it. Top flight restaurants have said that they would never come here. Bottom line: our monopoly needlessly perpetuates the reputation of our county being anti-business and anti-consumer and stunts our economy.

However, the state is a critical partner in this conversation. It is state law that created our monopoly, and state law must be passed to change it. The positive side of this dynamic is that the state would be the principal, direct beneficiary of increased liquor sales. I would work with the Governor and our legislature to split the savings that the state would derive and hold the county harmless as it weans itself from this monopoly. The dollars are not that significant given that our retail operations should continue to do well – assuming that they can compete! And in the long run, our county will prosper more without the monopoly than with it.

Marc Elrich

Any discussion of the Department of Liquor Control (DLC) must acknowledge that the Montgomery County budget relies on over $30 million in liquor revenue per year. That is no small amount of money, and it supports critical county services, including almost $11 million for bond payments. Nobody who has proposed privatizing the county’s liquor supply has a workable plan to fill the budget hole privatization would create, likely because there is no way to do so that doesn’t create other problems for the state.

Privatization proposals thus should not be taken seriously; instead, we should continue to look for ways to make the DLC more efficient and effective than it has been in the past, and to increase sales so that we can increase the revenue that the DLC generates.

We’ve already changed the way the DLC is run by bringing in industry professionals, including the director and the warehouse manager, who have improved the operations of the liquor system and brought in a philosophy of continuous improvement. I’ve also encouraged introducing lower markups for more expensive items, which they did, and I’ve supported and will continue to support efforts to help local breweries and wineries sell and distribute their goods. Both the new director and I want to hear and consider other ideas for helping transition the DLC from something that the county has long taken for granted into a professionally run system.

In fact, if a private-sector business had a division that produced a substantial profit but was identified as having management problems and customer service issues that prevented it from being more profitable, its most likely course of action would be to change management, work to improve services, and strive for greater profits. That is exactly what we have been doing with the DLC.

Bill Frick

I have been the state’s leader on fixing this abysmal broken system. My “end the monopoly” effort, helped immensely by the Seventh State’s Adam Pagnucco, fell short in 2016 in large part because of vigorous opposition from the Council and County Executive. We agreed to let the Executive lead a work group on the issue, but that work group served no real purpose other than to push the issue onto the desk of the next Executive.

This is a great opportunity. The DLC has value, and I have proposed to ensure that the value stays with Montgomery County by selling off the DLC’s assets, such as its franchise rights to beer distribution, its stores and warehouse, to generate millions in capital dollars that can be spent on school construction. Because the elimination of the DLC will generate millions in repatriated sales and excise tax dollars, I would work with my colleagues in the legislative leadership to help return some of those revenues to the County. Finally, we all know that the work of alcohol distribution will not disappear with the end of the DLC, rather, those jobs will migrate to the private sector and will likely grow in the County as our consumers come home to buy their beer, wine and spirits here. I will work with the private sector distributors and unions to find the best outcomes for current DLC employees as we get the County out of the liquor business.

George Leventhal

I am willing to entertain serious negotiations with parties who are willing to make a serious offer to purchase the right to distribute beer, wine and spirits in Montgomery County. In FY 2018, that enterprise generated more than $33 million in surplus revenue over expenses to the county’s general fund, of which $11 million was spent on debt service for approximately $100 million in Liquor Control Revenue Bonds, which were issued more than a decade ago to pay for transportation improvements, including the Montrose Parkway. I think we should commission an independent economic analysis of the present value of a guaranteed revenue stream of more than $30 million each year. My understanding is that it would come to hundreds of millions of dollars – more than enough to retire the bonds. I do not think the county should simply give away these valuable rights, which belong to the people of the county. However, serious offers from serious buyers should be considered. Simply giving the rights (and the associated revenues) away would require that the bonds be retired or refinanced through other means. If general obligation bonds were used to refinance the Liquor Control Revenue Bonds, it would reduce the county’s ability to construct new schools and other capital projects by $100 million.

In the absence of a serious offer to buy the rights to the entire enterprise, I continue to support the County Council’s 2015 proposal to privatize special order sales of beer and wine. Problems with delivery of special orders comprise the vast majority of complaints from restaurants, but the Montgomery County delegation to Annapolis declined to take up the County Council’s proposal in the 2016 session after County Executive Leggett asked for more time for study.

The Montgomery County delegation also declined to take up proposals for immediate privatization or for a voter referendum. Candidates for County Executive who have concerns about the Department of Liquor Control’s shortcomings should remember that liquor laws are made in Annapolis, not in Rockville. I would also support action by the state legislature to allow sales of beer and wine in grocery stores. Beer and wine stores will soon be able to sell spirits under legislation that passed in the 2017 session, which I supported.

Name one program in the county budget that is not working and can be cut. Tell us how much in annual savings that would yield.

For too long, Council members have used the County budget as a piggy bank to fund their pet projects and ideas, often ones that could not survive a serious cost/benefit review.

As we reorient County government to be a constituent-consumer focused organization, we can find savings. For example, the county employs nearly 40 personnel in its 311 call center, despite the dramatic shift in technology away from phone calls and towards electronic communications. If Montgomery County complemented this with a constituent service app, as exists in neighboring jurisdictions, many constituent services would be routed directly to the relevant agencies instead of going first through bureaucratic call centers, and we could save taxpayer money.

Finally, the County should not be a leader in corporate welfare. I would end our tax credits for investors, money that goes from everyday taxpayers straight to the pockets of wealthy investors, often to reward them for making investments they would have made regardless. This is a fight I led at the state level as the architect of the Tax Credit Evaluation Act, legislation to spotlight and reform our runaway subsidies, and by going toe-to-toe with Hollywood to make sure our tax dollars were being spent productively.

Job growth has been stagnant in Montgomery County over the past few years. What would you do to encourage increased job growth?

For far too long, our Council has been complacent with the status quo and at times even outright hostile to the private sector. Resting on the expectation of stable employment from the federal government, the Council has been largely indifferent and even averse to growing the private sector economy. We can no longer afford to talk about the need for job and wage growth and yet show no interest in facilitating business growth that creates those jobs. As Norm Augustine likes to say, “you can’t be for jobs and against employers.”

From our notorious permitting process to our burdensome tax policies, we need to stop treating small business as the enemy. Small businesses are the vital engine that will drive our middle class growth. We need to reorient our administration to recognize that being punitive to businesses isn’t actually in our interests.

We must also foster and facilitate growth and entrepreneurship. We benefit from an amazingly well-educated and creative workforce. But our women and men often find DC or Virginia or Baltimore to be more promising environments in which to grow and create businesses. I want to enhance access to capital by building on our programs to keep local and state dollars in the community banks that are most likely to lend to small businesses, like I did at the state level. And I will help jump-start our hospitality, service, and restaurant economy by reforming or eliminating the Department of Liquor Control, a broken system that has functioned as a repellent to restaurants and consumers alike. I led this fight in the legislature, and will win this fight as County Executive.

The County Council on Tuesday voted unanimously to a compromise that will phase in the $15-per-hour wage over four years based on businesses’ size.

Under the compromise:

large businesses with more than 50 employees will be required to pay the minimum wage in 2021

businesses with 11 to 50 employees will have to pay the wage in 2023

small businesses with fewer than 11 employees will need to pay the wage in 2024.

The council also approved a measure to tie the wage to the inflation rate in 2022 to prevent the need to vote to increase the wage in the future.

Indexing’s Long-Term Impact

This last bit may be the most important. Indexing to inflation assures that Montgomery’s minimum will continue to rise. As a result, the gap between the minimum wage in Montgomery and elsewhere will continue to grow.

If demand for labor keeps the going rate below Montgomery’s minimum, especially as indexing drives it up, it will make the county less competitive in businesses that don’t need to be located here, though have less impact on many services that are hard to move. However, even these businesses, like restaurants, can choose where to open and we would likely see the result.

The impact on the County budget over the short term is unclear. Over the long term, it may force the County to ratchet up wages and cut other services more in lean budget times, since the County will no longer be able to limit COLAs for workers at the bottom and will have to fight wage compression.

Any future economic and budgetary pressures will be made more acute, as the popularity of indexing wages makes it politically perilous to remove. These potentially negative impacts, however, will occur enough in the future that the current crop of officials will not have to address any consequences of their actions.

Political Impact

The short-term politics are more interesting. It gives Marc Elrich a major victory to tout and undermines critiques of him as ineffective in marshaling his colleagues behind him. At the same time, the unanimous adoption of a compromise takes a lot of the juice out of the political issue as it was adopted unanimously.

Candidates can’t differentiate themselves when there is no difference on an issue. Incumbent Sidney Katz’s opponent, Ben Shnider, regards this as a victory since he pressured Katz on the issue. But the Council’s action makes it very hard to campaign against Katz on this basis – a win for Katz.

The decline of the issue’s salience also benefits outsider candidates worried about the financial impact, as they are on the less popular side of the question. It may give an opening to County Executive Candidates Bill Frick and Rose Krasnow with the business community, which won’t like the outcome.

Roger Berliner will be grateful this issue is off the agenda and will tell business leaders that he did the best he did to mitigate its impact. Ultimately, however, he still voted for a policy they think is harmful, while Frick was willing to say publicly that minimum wage policy should be left to the state.

Frick will argue to business that his actions show that he is willing to take on tougher causes and they should get behind him. Krasnow is not yet formally in the race, which limits any lumps she can take but also prevents her from earning points on this issue. As the Maryland Lottery has spent much money to explain, “you have to play to win.”

As the County Council is getting ready to vote on raising the minimum wage, Seventh State continues its series of candidate responses to questions with this issue.

Do you favor an increase in the Montgomery County minimum wage and, if so, by how much and on what timeline? Would you have any exemptions and, if so, for whom?

I have co-sponsored and voted for bills to raise the minimum wage statewide in Annapolis. A thoughtful minimum wage policy, properly enforced, can be an important tool in reducing income inequality. That is why I helped enact a minimum wage increase as a legislator in Annapolis. Minimum wage policy, however, is more effective as a state policy than as a local one. Maryland has a Department of Labor, with the statutory power and duty to enforce minimum wage and other employment laws. Montgomery County does not. Just as zoning and land use decisions belong at the County level instead of the state, I believe employment regulation is better in the hands of the state, where those regulations can be effectively enforced and implemented.